Andrea Sterk
Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity (excerpts)
From "Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity", Harvard University Press.
John Chrysostom: The Model Monk-Bishop in Spite of Himself
Second Part
In such passages John refers to what he considered the scandalous process of choosing priests and bishops in his day Like Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nazianzen, he decries the factionalism, favouritism, and scheming that characterized Episcopal appointments as much as the envy and ambition of those who vied for the highest offices. Moreover, if the Constantinian regime had transformed the status of priests and bishops, their rank and privileges only increased with the Theodosian triumph. In his farewell address in Constantinople Nazianzen had lamented the pomp and ceremony that accompanied Episcopal elections. Chrysostom feared that such high honours would provoke the clergy to pride and vainglory and would adversely affect the motivation of potential Episcopal candidates(39). Expressing these concerns in his commentary on Acts, he wrote, "We run after this [the episcopate] just as we do after the dignities of the world. That we may have glory with men, we lose ourselves with God"(40).
While condemning such abuses and presenting his own defence in his treatise "On the Priesthood", John also gives a detailed and eloquent exposition of the duties, demands, and dignity of the sacerdotal office. Chrysostom uses the word hierosune (priesthood) to encompass both priests and bishops, though he sometimes employs the term episkopos to emphasize the extent of responsibilities incumbent upon a bishop alone(41). He viewed the priesthood as an exalted calling, surpassing the rank of royalty and even superior to the monastic vocation(42). The responsibilities
of the priest are diverse, requiring a wide range of practical skills as well as the "virtue of angels," a lifestyle John often identified with monastic life(43). Elsewhere in the treatise also he describes the priesthood in angelic terms, for while Nazianzen and others viewed the ordained clergy as a type of the priests and prophets of Israel, Chrysostom saw the Christian priesthood as a divine or heavenly order, a ministry instituted by the Holy Spirit: "For the priestly office is discharged on earth, but it ranks among heavenly ordinances. And this is very fitting, for no human being, nor angel, nor archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete himself instituted this order and persuaded men, while still remaining in the flesh, to represent the ministry of angels(44). Unlike Nazianzen, John devotes considerable attention to the liturgical functions of the clergy. He speaks of the holy and awe-inspiring sacraments over which the priest presides, particularly baptism and the Eucharist, as evidence of the great dignity of this office and demanding of the most pure and holy life(45). His treatment of the minister's priestly role, as well as his prophetic and pastoral duties, may reflect an intention to offer a fuller theological exposition of church office in contrast to Nazianzen's more extempore responses to contemporary Episcopal ills. In any case, John spares few details in describing the manifold tasks and burdens of ecclesiastical office -from the diligent preparation of effective sermons to the visitation of widows and virgins, patronage of the poor, care for the sick and needy, administration of justice, and careful management of church finances(46).
Since "De sacerdotio" was written by a priest who was also intimately acquainted with monastic life, it is not surprising that ascetic ideals often enter into his discussion of church office. However, John does not present monastic virtues as the only requirement or even the main one for priestly or Episcopal ministry. In fact in several sections of the treatise he describes the piety and discipline of the monk only to show the inadequacy of such virtues for the demands of ecclesiastical leadership. Reflecting on Christ's exchange with Peter in John 21, Chrysostom remarks that Christ does not say to this apostle, If you love me, practice fasting, sleeping on the ground, prolonged vigils, or any particular deeds of justice or mercy. Rather, he instructs his disciple, "Tend my sheep"(47). In a similar vein John argues that mortification of the body and other ascetic rigors are insufficient to produce the discernment and vigilance required of a leader in the church. Indeed the isolated and inactive life of monks may hide the defects of some men, while those who serve the church in public must expose their souls to all (48). In another passage he points out that even the example of an apostolic life is of no avail in disputing heresy and false doctrine, yet this is the constant struggle of the priest (49).
Scattered references to the ascetic life occur throughout "De sacerdotio", but John devotes all of Book 6 to a series of comparisons between clergy and monks. He gives numerous examples of how priests and bishops face greater temptations, trials, and demands than do monks who dwell in solitude. For this reason, John argues, priests need even greater purity discipline, and virtue (50). Not only is the ascetic life alone inadequate preparation for leadership in the church, but John expresses serious misgivings about ordaining monks to such positions. He considers most monks ill prepared for the tasks of the priesthood. Living in isolation and attending only to their own progress in virtue, they lack the experience and training to ward off worldly temptations, to serve the diverse needs of the multitude, and to govern the church(51).
One might easily conclude from such passages that John had lost his enthusiasm for monastic life, but this would be an overstatement of his sentiments. Within a year of completing his dialogue on the priesthood, Chrysostom would be a lauding monk as "beacons that give light to the entire world"(52). He encouraged his congregation in Antioch to visit monks in the nearby wilderness, and he specifically urged fathers to visit holy men with their adolescent sons (53). Moreover, despite his reservations about monks in church office, he admits in "De sacerdotio" that some who had been chosen from the ranks of monks had shone in the exercise of ecclesiastical authority(54). His concerns in this treatise reflect convictions already expressed earlier -both positively, in "De oppugnatores", and negatively, in "De compunctione". Monks ought to be involved in the life of the Christian community and not obsessed with their own solitude or preoccupied with thoughts of their own salvation. As he puts it in "De sacerdotio", "Training oneself [in virtue] results only in one's own advantage but the benefit of the pastoral function extends to all the people"(55). While not denying the benefits of monastic life, in such passages he clearly places a higher value on the function of the priest.
Nevertheless, John describes paradigmatic priests and bishops in terms that reflect ideals of the contemplative or monastic life. First of all, their pastoral role as ecclesiastical leaders demands qualities and strategies of the spiritual father, or the abba of the desert. They must set a consistent saintly example, like that of the apostle Paul. They must possess discernment, discretion, and intuition so as to provide individualized guidance and apply gradual, gentle, and apt correction to disciples under their direction (56). Moreover, those who receive the dignity of ecclesiastical office are "as if they had surpassed human nature, as if they had been released from our passions." As we have seen, he compares them with angels, a metaphor he often uses for monastics, demanding of church leaders even greater purity, virtue, and self-mastery than that expected of monks (57). What is needed, John insists in response to the perplexity of his friend Basil, are men who demonstrate the attributes of monks yet manage to maintain those qualities while living in the world: "When examining candidates for the priesthood one should not even consider those [worldly ones] but rather one, if such a one exists, who while living and associating with the crowd is able to keep unharmed and unshaken the purity, serenity, holiness, steadfastness, sobriety and all the other virtues which distinctively belong to monks to an even greater degree than those who live in solitude." In a passage describing the diverse and burdensome duties of the priest or bishop, John expresses a similar sentiment: "He must know all the affairs of life no less than those who live in the world, but he must be free from all these affairs even more than the monks who occupy the mountains"(58).
Chrysostom hoped that church office would be reformed by the introduction of leaders committed to the ascetic life who were also able to teach, lead, and maintain their sanctity in a demanding role as well as a corrupt and provocative environment. For John this ideal was not merely theoretical. Bishop Flavian of Antioch, who ordained him to the priesthood and whom he eulogized in his first homily delivered on the day of his ordination, served as a model of the type of bishop John endorsed.
Though not a monk, Flavian had pursued an ascetic life in the world before being elevated to ecclesiastical office. Despite an opulent upbringing, he exercised self-control, mastered his appetite, scorned the easy life, and embraced a life of poverty (59). He compares Flavian with Abraham and especially with Moses, a favourite model of leadership for the Cappadocians (60). Once raised to the Episcopal dignity, and even in his old age, the bishop continued to practice ascetic disciplines. Yet he always exercised moderation, John explains, so as not to impair his ability to serve the church. While he carefully guarded his own life, Flavian spared no effort to join in the struggles of others and to help those who navigate to steer their ships safely (61).
Such a man was Chrysostom's ideal for the office of bishop. Nevertheless, he was well aware of the crucial roles that monks could play in positions of ecclesiastical authority As bishop of Constantinople John reserved primarily for monks the leadership of the church's missionary activity since he viewed their lives as symbols of salvation and as peculiarly suited to this vital apostolic task. He sent monks as missionaries to the Goths, to Phoenicia, and to various other locations (62).
He involved monks and nuns in the work of charitable institutions in Constantinople (63).
He also employed many monks as personal advisers and close collaborators. As noted above, even in «De sacerdotio", which exalts the priesthood as higher or more valuable than the monastic state, John acknowledges that several monks who had been ordained had fulfilled their charge and served the church brilliantly. He himself ordained some as deacons and priests and gave them pastoral tasks. It seems that he also consecrated several monks to Episcopal office. We know for certain of Heraclides, in Ephesus, whom he ordained in the wake of his deposition of thirteen simoniac bishops in Asia Minor, but there were very likely others (64) Prominent among those monks he influenced and possibly ordained was his deacon Palladius, the future bishop of Helenopolis, who was devoted to Chrysostom and would write the main account of his mentor's life (65).
Unfortunately for John, neither his employment of monks nor his experience and general advocacy of monastic life endeared him to the monks under his jurisdiction as bishop of Constantinople. The story of his heavy-handed efforts to control monastic life, on the one hand, and his persecution by monks, on the other, has been recounted in some detail.(66) Indeed some scholars have attributed John's attempted ordinations of monks to an endeavour to control the movement by clearly subordinating monks to his Episcopal authority. Though he had earlier complained of the isolation and inactivity of monks, their disengagement from society and from a church that badly needed their services, in Constantinople John encountered monks of a very different sort. Isaac the Syrian, the leader of monks and monasteries in Constantinople during his episcopate, is the main representative of a distinctive type of monasticism that characterized the movement in the capital and that proved to be a thorn in the flesh for John.(67) As Gilbert Dagron has demonstrated, early Constantinopolitan monasticism, connected with the foundational activities of such theologically suspect figures as Eustathius of Sebaste and Marathonius, had semi-Arian roots, was primarily an urban phenomenon, and was marked by a series of conflicts with the hierarchy of the church.(68) Thus, while John's contemporary and nemesis, Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria, had at his disposal a disciplined cohort of monastic shock troops, Chrysostom was faced with a wandering, loosely organized, independently minded, international community of monks. These monks took an extremely active role in affairs of the city and the church, functioning as a kind of intra-urban lobby that frequently resisted Episcopal authority. Confrontations with monastics of this type, particularly with the archimandrite Isaac, lie behind Sozomen's description of John's perspective on monasticism and his relations with Constantinopolitan monks:
He highly commended those who remained in quietude in the monasteries and practiced philosophy there ... But the monks who went out of doors and made their appearance in cities, he reproached and regarded as insulting philosophy. For these causes, he incurred the hatred of the clergy, and of many of the monks, who called him a hard, passionate, morose, and arrogant man. They therefore attempted to bring his life into public disrepute, by stating confidently, as if it were the truth, that he would eat with no one, and that he refused every invitation to a meal that was offered him. (69)
Dagron has duly emphasized the opposition between desert and city in John's monastic thought and suggests that he could not conceive of monasticism other than as a desert tradition (70). Given the opposition he faced from monks in Constantinople, one can better understand John's apparent desire to keep monks on their mountaintops or otherwise far removed from the cities of the empire. But in light of his frequent praise for ascetic ideals in general and his expressions of esteem for the life of monks in particular, we ought not to conclude too quickly that John had become ideologically or systematically opposed to urban asceticism. First of all, his general ambivalence and apparent inconsistencies on issues such as monastic life have been shown to be less whimsical and more methodical than has often been assumed. Typical is his homily on the statues, where John congratulates monks for interceding on behalf of the citizens of Antioch in the aftermath of their treasonous acts, and then praises them even more highly for quickly withdrawing from the city after their intervention (71). Moreover, although Dagron affirms that there were no monks who actually supported the bishop in Constantinople, there was at least one urban ascetic circle that John admired and that supported the bishop's ideals and reforms, namely the circle of virgins around the wealthy widow Olympias (72). Here we find the kind of ascetics that John wished would characterize the monastic movement as a whole: self-sacrificing, unobtrusively involved in service to the church, and firmly committed, and submitted to the authority of the bishop -that is, to John himself. It would seem, then, that it was not so much the residence of monks near cities that bothered Chrysostom, for from his earliest writings he implied that ascetics should be constructively involved in the life of the church. It was the unruliness, independence, and rebelliousness of monks, their lack of respect for the ecclesiastical hierarchy that John decried.
Whatever his personal concerns about monks or his expectations of leaders in the church, the portrayal of Chrysostom's life, as much as his actual career and writings, demonstrates the new image of the bishop that had begun to take root in Asia Minor by the beginning of the fifth century. If John himself was somewhat ambivalent about monks in church office, his disciple Palladius was certainly not. The immediate aim of his "Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom", written shortly after John's death in 407, was to vindicate his hero from the false and highly derogatory charges of his enemies (73). However, Palladius's broader objective was to present him as a model Christian bishop. He maintains that this was the way John himself viewed his ministry, namely, "that he was sent to serve as a model [typos] for bishops to follow in regard to his manner of life" (74). This affirmation is followed by one of several descriptions of John's abstemious habits. The Deacon in the Dialogue explicitly states that this account should be of help "for those who are ambitious for the episcopate." Such men, he continues, "should be like the holy John," who imitated the way of martyrs and coupled his management of the churches with a rigorous ascetic life (75). Particularly the last part of the Dialogue is devoted to a description of John's exemplary way of life in contrast to the evil and ambitious bishops who persecuted him. He is compared with Moses both in his withdrawal from the world and in the suffering he endured at the hands of men in authority (76).
The image of John that emerges in the pages of the Dialogue is that of the monk-bishop par excellence. Since his primary purpose was to rehabilitate John from false accusations levelled against him during his episcopate, Palladius devotes relatively little attention to the bishop's youth or the period of his priesthood. He does not, however, fail to mention John's early commitment to a life of asceticism. Describing his years of monastic solitude, Palladius recounts that John managed to suppress his bodily temptations during his first four years of austere self-discipline." The young man then withdrew into a cave in complete isolation. There, over the course of another two years, he deprived himself of sleep in order to devote his energy relentlessly to the study of Scripture. So severe were John's habits, Palladius explains, that he damaged his gastric organs and kidneys. As a result of this sickness and as evidence of the Saviour's providence, he was compelled to abandon his caves for the benefit of the church.
Though he left the mountains and caves for the city, he did not relinquish his ascetic way of life. He ended his days in a frail and emaciated body. In fact, Palladius has a great deal to say about John's abstemiousness with regard to food and drink, defending his much maligned eating habits as particularly appropriate to the study of Scripture (78). He identifies John's predilection for solitude with John the Baptist's flight from the crowds and Jesus' withdrawal from the multitudes to a mountain. He points out that the prophets also withdrew from the crowds and stayed in the deserts (79). Virtually ignoring John's acrimonious dispute with the monastic leader Isaac and the general resistance to his reforms on the part of Constantinopolitan monks, Palladius mentions Isaac only once, as "that street idler, the guide of false monks who wandered about saying bad things about the bishop"(80). He presents Chrysostom as a patron of monks, supporting and interceding for the monastic party in the controversy with Theophilus of Alexandria. Moreover, following the example of St. Paul, John's life was a model of temperance, simplicity, and piety for all men and women. Accordingly he is shown to have led even the common people to a stricter manner of life (81).
Having himself dwelt among the monks of Alexandria, Nitria, and the Cells, Palladius exalts virtues and powers in the life of the bishop that were normally ascribed to the desert abba. Along with ascetic disciplines, he draws attention to John's unusual spiritual discernment or insight. In one instance the holy bishop is said to have known full well of a shameful plot against him (82). Similarly, in exile outside Comana, John received a vision of the martyred bishop of the city foretelling his death. He accepted this oracle peacefully and prepared for his end, which came to pass the next day as predicted. He was buried in a martyr's shrine in the presence of a multitude of virgins, ascetics, and other holy men and women (83). Alongside the sufferings he endured, John's life was accompanied by miraculous signs. For example, on the event of his exile "the angel of the church accompanied him as he left," unable to bear the evil wrought by the principalities and powers who had forced him to depart. What is more, the church itself was miraculously consumed in flames, starting with the throne on which John used to sit.
"The flame looked for the expounder of the Word," Palladius explains, and "not finding him it consumed the church furnishings"(84). He attributes the conflagration to God's judgment and warning to evildoers. John's enemies, meanwhile, met with divine punishment through a variety of strange diseases and afflictions. The description of divine vengeance on the persecutors of the saintly monk-bishop is reminiscent of Nazianzen's account of God's chastisement of Emperor Valens for his decree of banishment against Basil (85). In both cases the bishop's reputation as an ascetic and a holy man is linked to an endowment of extraordinary power or vivid manifestations of divine approval.
Finally, John's ascetic practices in no way vitiated his oversight of the churches or his diligent performance of pastoral duties. He is portrayed throughout the Dialogue as an ardent reformer, a just arbiter, and an indefatigable preacher and teacher of the Word. In addition to his efforts to reform the clergy, he designated the use of church funds to build hospitals and hospices paralleling the philanthropic institutions of Basil in Caesarea. According to Palladius, John's social endeavours, coupled with his condemnations of laxity, licentiousness, and avarice among clergy and laity alike, were the source of the many false charges trumped up against him. Nonetheless, as a result of his many reforms the church flourished and the city itself became marked by piety, sobriety, and Psalm singing (86). In the closing pages of his biography Palladius eulogizes Chrysostom with a comparison that encapsulates the monk-bishop model he found in his mentor: "Ο blessed John, with what kind of words shall Ι weave an unfading crown to bring you? ... Shall they be those words in the law spoken by Moses when he blessed the active Joseph and the contemplative Levi the priest (for Ι see them both in you)?"(87) He replies by quoting the blessing of Moses on the tribes of these two brothers, whom he uses to represent the active and contemplative life, respectively. The harmonious admixture of these two seemingly dissonant modes of life, embodied in John Chrysostom, was Palladius's ideal for the office of bishop.
In addition to portraying John as the model monk-bishop, the Dialogue also gives evidence for the growth of the monastic episcopate during this period, as does the author's more popular "Lausiac History". Along with seven or eight disciples of a certain monk Isaac who were ordained by Theophilus "when he was still a lover of God," writes Palladius, many disciples of another monk Isaac were also raised to the episcopate (88). Outside Egypt a number of Chrysostom's supporters, whose trials on his account are enumerated, were also monk-bishops. Palladius recounts how they endured imprisonment, beatings, tortures, and banishment for the sake of Christ (89).
The sufferings, ascetic disciplines, and charisma attributed to these bishops recall the extraordinary personalities among the desert monks in his "Lausiac History" and in the "Apophthegmata Patrum". Like these more popular ascetic works, Palladius's Dialogue suggests a broader intention on the part of the author.
He hoped not merely to vindicate his friend and mentor but to present both John Chrysostom and other monk-bishops as Episcopal heroes, models for leadership in the church.
Though John's ideal leader remained the ascetic living in the world, monks themselves, rather than monastic virtues, were increasingly making their way into the episcopate. In spite of his reservations about the ordination of monks, expressed most clearly in "De sacerdotio", his own words as much as his example were invoked in support of this practice. After praising Chrysostom as "truly a bishop by his works" and noting his special solicitude for monks, Callinicus, author of the mid-fifth-century "Vita Hypatii", refers to an exhortation that John allegedly addressed to the community of monks at Rouphinianai near Chalcedon: "You must give account for the fact that you are hiding and not putting your lamp on the lamp stand. By refusing ordination you are causing others, whom we do not know, to be ordained." Callinicus goes on to explain that one of the brothers had bitten off his finger to disqualify himself for church office (90).
This is a rather surprising work in which to find a positive assessment of John's Episcopal authority vis-à-vis monks, for the monk Hypatius himself resisted ordination, showed considerable independence from the hierarchy of the church, and repeatedly undermined the authority of his own bishop (91). In short, he represented a form of monasticism that John had denounced and that would soon be severely curtailed by the legislation of Chalcedon. Moreover, the laudatory words about John's relation to monks are immediately preceded by an equally praiseworthy description of his rival Isaac the Syrian, who used to regularly visit the monastery of Hypatius (92). Writing some forty years after Chrysostom's episcopate but prior to the Council of Chalcedon, Callinicus discreetly avoids mention of their dispute. He did not wish to discredit his hero, a monk in the tradition of Isaac, nor did he want to highlight tensions between monks and the hierarchy of the church. But his juxtaposition of Isaac's leadership of the monasteries with the rebelliousness of some monks whom John hoped to ordain seems more than coincidental. In any case, whatever views John himself expressed, and however much or little he did to elevate monks to the priesthood or episcopate, he was remembered by future generations as a paradigmatic monk-bishop and a promoter of monks in church office.
Notes
39. De sacerdotio 3.9.
40. Homily 3 on Acts in The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles, trans. J. Walker et al., NPNF, Ist ser., vol. 11 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 23. In the same homily he echoes Nazianzen's lamentation over the honours awarded bishops.
41. On John's use of hierosune see Malingrey's comments in Sur le sacerdoce, pp. 72-73 n. 1, and 143 n. 1. See also Anne-Marie Malingrey, "Le ministère épiscopal dans l'œuvre de Jean Chrysostome," in Charles Kannengiesser, ed., Jean Chrysostome et Augustin, Théologie historique 35 (Paris: Éditions Beauchesne, 1975), pp. 87-88. On p. 76 she cites the passage in John's Ιn epist. Ι ad Tim. 3, hom. ΧΙ (PG 62, 553) where he suggests that the οnly real difference between the offices of priest and bishop is that the latter has the power to ordain.
42. De sacerdotio 3.1 and 2.4, respectively.
43. De sacerdotio 6.2, lines 4-5.
44. De sacerdotio 3.4, lines 1-8. For references to the clergy as the counterpart of the Old Testament priesthood in other patristic writers-specifically Ambrose, Paulinus, Jerome, and Nazianzen-see Greer, "Reflections on the Ordained Ministry," p. 39 n. 46.
45. De sacerdotio 3.4-6.
46. John describes many pastoral and administrative tasks in De sacerotio 3.12-14 while devoting almost all of Books 4 and 5 to the prophetic duties of the priest as a preacher and teacher of the Word of God.
47. De sacerdotio 2.1, lines 57-65.
48. De sacerdotio 3.10, lines 108-126, 195-200. These themes are developed more fully in 6.6-8.
49. De sacerdotio 4.8, line 47, to 4.9, line 11.
50. See especially De sacerdotio 6.2-6.6 on this theme. The argument bears close resemblance to that of the sermon De renunciatione saeculi, PG 31, 648BC, originating from the Cappadocian monastic milieu.
51. De sacerdotio 3.11, lines 24-38; 6.3-4; and 6.6-8.
52. Ιn Mattaeum homiliae 72.4 (PG 58, 672); cited in Kelly, Golden Mouth, p. 85.
53. Ιn Matt. hom. 68.4 and 69.4 (PG 58.645 and 654), and De inani gloria 78, in Anne-Marie Malingrey, Jean Chyrsostome: Sur la vaine gloire et l'éducation des enfants, SC 188 (Paris: Editions du cerf, 1972), p. 180, lines 931932. The purpose of these father-son visits was to help boys struggling to rein in their sexual passions. Unlike his recommendation in Against the Opponents, however, John expresses esteem for the monastic vocation while advising parents to raise their children on their own rather than send them to monasteries. De inani gloria 18-19.
54. De sacerdotio 3.11, lines 46-47.
55. De sacerdotio 2.4, lines 57-59.
56. See especially De sacerdotio 2.3-4, 4.6, and 6.4. That these traits derive from the ascetic rather than the clerical tradition has been emphasized in a paper by George Demacopoulos, "Spiritual Direction in the Early Byzantine Church: Ammonas, Athanasius and Chrysostom,"Byzantine Studies Conference, November 2001.
57. De sacerdotio 3.5, lines 25-27; De sacerdotio 6.2. On the "angelic life" as a metaphor for monks see also Leroux, "Monachisme et communauté chrétienne," pp. 176-179.
58. De sacerdotio 6.8, lines 9-15; ibid., 6.4, lines 69-71.
59. Sermo cum presbyter, lines 159-199, especially lines 166-172, in Malingrey, ed., Sur le sacerdoce, pp. 367-419. Malingrey describes the sermon as "the necessary complement" to Chrysostom's dialogue on the priesthood. On Bishop Flavian see also Theodoret, ΗΕ 4.11 and 25, and 5.23.
60. Sermo cum presbyter, lines 220-222. Abraham is mentioned only in passing.
The Moses synkrisis emphasizes the patriarch's rejection of worldly honours and pleasures.
61. Sermo cum presbyter, lines 235-248, 253-268.
62. See Ιvo auf der Maur, Monchtum und Glaubensverhundigung in den Schriften des Ηl. Johannes Chrysostomus, Paradosis 14, (Freiburg, 1959), pp. 124141, for John's use of monks in missions.
63. See Jean-Marie Leroux, "Jean Chrysostome et le monachisme," in Kannengiesser, Jean Chrysostome et Augustin, especially pp. 139-144, and Leroux, "Monachisme et communauté chrétiennes," pp. 182-190.
64. Sozomen, ΗΕ 8.6; Socrates, ΗΕ 6.11. Οn John's consecration of monks for various church offices see Leroux, "Jean Chrysostome et le monachisme," pp. 141-142, and the more extensive treatment in auf der Maur, Monchtum und Glaubensverhundigung, pp. 118-124.
65. On Palladius's life and association with John see the editors' introduction in Malingrey and Leclercq, Palladios, pp. 10-18, 25-33. See also Robert Τ. Meyer, trans., Palladius: Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, ACW 45 (New York: Newman Press, 1985), pp. 3-4.
66. Most notably by Gilbert Dagron, "Les moines et la ville: Le monachisme a Constantinople jusqu'au Concile de Chalcédoine (451)," Travaux et Mémoires 4 (1970): especially pp. 262-265.
67. On Issac as the leader of Constantinopolitan monasticism see the midfifth-century reflections of Callinicus, Vita Hypatii 1.6 and 11.1-4, in G. J. Μ. Bartelink, ed., Callinicus: Vie d'Hypatios, SC 177 (Paris: Editions du cerf, 1971), pp. 74 and 110, respectively. For a very different perspective on this Isaac see Palladius, Dial. 6.
68. Dagron, "Les moines et la ville," p. 246.
69. Sozomen, ΗΕ 8.9.4-5: Joseph Bidez, ed., rev Gunther Christian Hansen, Sozomenus Kirchengeschichte, GCS n.Ε 4 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995), p. 362; trans. Chester D. Hartranft, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, NPNF 2nd ser. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), p. 405. Sozomen attributes John's seeming disdain for monks and society in general to the rigors of his ascetic life, which had permanently injured his stomach and head.
70. See in particular Dagron, "Les moines et la ville," p. 258 n. 148.
71. Homiliae de statuis ad populum Antiochenum 17.5 (PG 49, 174). Leyerle, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives, p.199, mentions this episode in the context of Chrysostom's ambivalence about monks.
72. On Olympias and her involvement with Chrysostom see Palladius, Dial. 16 and 17, and "Vie d'Olympias" in Anne-Marie Malingrey, ed., John Chrysostome: Lettres a Olympias, 2nd ed., SC 13 bis (Paris: Editions du cerf, 1968), pp. 393-449; English translation and notes in Elizabeth Α. Clark, Jerome Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), pp. 107-144.
73. Toward the beginning of the Dialogue, Palladius alludes to a calumnious letter about John; this may have been a literary invention to justify Ρalladius's writing the Dialogue so shortly after John's death. See Meyer's comments, Dialogue, pp. 4-5. On date and place of composition see Malingrey and Leclercq, Palladios, pp. 19-31.
74. Dial. 17.206-208: Meyer, p. 115.
75. Dial. 20.5-6: Meyer, p. 131.
76. For comparisons with Moses see Dial. 9.38, 18.225, 19.133. See the comments on Palladius in Claudia Rapp, "Comparison, Paradigm and the Case of Moses in Panegyric and Hagiography," in Mary Whitby, ed., The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Βrill, 1998), p. 291.
77. For what follows see Dial. 5.15-33.
78. Dial. 12 and 18. See Dial. 20 for his final days.
79. Dial. 19.16-27 and 19.118-153.
80. Dial. 6.16-17: Meyer, p. 41.
81. On John's support of the monastic party in the controversy with Theophilus see especially Dial. 7-8; οn his exemplary life, see 18.47-57.
82. Dial. 8.226-231.
83. Dial. 11.120-156.
84. Dial. 10.72 and 87-88: Meyer, pp. 67-68. Palladius attributes no miracles to John himself, although this was characteristic of hagiography from this period onward.
85. Dial. 17.30-63. Compare GNaz, Oration 43.54, and Socrates, ΗΕ 6.19.
86. See Dial. 5.100-166 for Palladius's discussion of John's reforms, and 5.158-161 for the alleged results. Regarding the calumnies such reforms provoked, see especially Dial. 6.1-7.
87. Dial. 20.523-528: Meyer, p. 146.
88. Dial. 17.115-119. Notice here Palladius's pun on the name Theophilus, literally "lover of God." Other Egyptian monk-bishops are mentioned in chapters 7 and 8. See also Historia lausiaca 46.
89. See especially Dial. 20.31-106.
90. See Vita Hypatii 11.8 and 9, SC 177.
91. On Hypatius's forced ordination see Vita Hypatii 13.2. For an example of his independence see chapter 32. On Hypatius and the place of his Vita in Constantinopolitan monastic developments see Dagron, "Les moines et la ville," especially pp. 233-236 and 244-246.
92. Vita Hypatii 11.1-4
|
